A look at actions, not all the input

Cuomo document policy won't retain information leading to decisions

Published 11:00 pm, Tuesday, July 3, 2012

ALBANY — Aides to Gov. Andrew Cuomo have set a policy about which records from his administration to keep and which to discard.

This is a proactive step for Cuomo, who took office in 2011 promising to run an administration that is "the most transparent and accountable in history."

Nothing in state statutes mandates that governors must preserve their papers.

Gov. David Paterson vetoed a bill just before leaving office in 2010 that would have forced governors to send papers to the archives. Instead, he issued an executive order demanding each executive develop their own records retention policy.

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Paterson's documents policy was finalized about a week before he left office.

The Cuomo policy is coming early by comparison.

"Gov. Cuomo has gone above and beyond the requirements of the law by adopting a detailed records retention policy. Now the public, the news media, his staff and those associated with governors in the future will have a framework for identifying categories of Executive Chamber documents and knowing how long they will be retained," said Bob Freeman, director of the Committee on Open Government. "For the first time, there will be certainty concerning the maintenance of those records."

The Cuomo policy largely mirrors the Paterson effort, which was never fully implemented. It expands the policy to include records of the lieutenant governor, reports of various commissions and files on Indian relations.

But the Cuomo administration will discard weekly reports from its experts in various policy areas, which officials described as draft documents. Like Paterson, Cuomo plans to discard general files on state agency activities after leaving office, including briefings, analyses, opinions and recommendations.

Susan Lerner, executive director of the good-government group Common Cause, called the planned destruction of the files "curious."

"I love that there's a policy. That degree of transparency is excellent, and they are to be applauded for doing it early," she said. "But as in anything, there are some things that I wonder why they aren't retaining, because some are exactly the kinds of things that my friends who are historians would love to find in an archives in 30 or 40 years."

Administration officials said the policy focuses on preserving documentation of the administration's final actions.

The policy does not designate a final location for the records. Cuomo could send his papers to the State Archives, or follow the lead of some previous governors and donate them to a private library, perhaps attached to a university — or contemplate any transfer before he leaves office.

Under the law, the archives is due papers from Cuomo's four-year term as attorney general, but none of his personal papers have arrived.

In addition, only a smattering of his aides' files have been transferred.